Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Busyness

Busy is a word. Business is a word. I feel busyness should be a word. I experience busyness. Its weight is as real as the wind or the sunshine or the rain.

Busy is a word that designates being occupied with activity like a CEO. Busy is when you are engaged in much work or cluttered with distracting detail like a garage filled with spare parts. It even refers to annoying meddlesome activity of the prying eyes of a detective.

Business is a word that legitimizes our work. It is a place of occupation, activity and detail. Business is where a CEO, a mechanic and a detective get paid for their activity.

Busyness is real. Busyness muscles into our day and occupies it. Busyness showers papers and emails and reports and parts into our lives and demands our attention. Busyness blows out commands as if its possesses authority to do so.

Busyness is not a relationship. A calm, casual cup of coffee with your friend is not busyness. A pickup game of basketball and a friendly phone call to say "hello" do not qualify as busyness. Time spent cooking dinner with a friend in a quiet apartment surrounded by conversation is not the busyness of "grabbing lunch" and talking through music.

Who controls you? What commands you? Busyness is as real as any idol can be . . . Imaginary, but oh so powerful.

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